2 Kings 2:21

2:21 He went out to the spring and threw the salt in. Then he said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or fail to produce crops.”

2 Kings 4:41

4:41 He said, “Get some flour.” Then he threw it into the pot and said, “Now pour some out for the men so they may eat.” There was no longer anything harmful in the pot.

Exodus 15:25

15:25 He cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When Moses threw it into the water, the water became safe to drink. There the Lord made for them a binding ordinance, and there he tested 10  them.

Mark 7:33-34

7:33 After Jesus 11  took him aside privately, away from the crowd, he put his fingers in the man’s 12  ears, and after spitting, he touched his tongue. 13  7:34 Then 14  he looked up to heaven and said with a sigh, “Ephphatha” (that is, “Be opened”). 15 

Mark 8:23-25

8:23 He took the blind man by the hand and brought him outside of the village. Then 16  he spit on his eyes, placed his hands on his eyes 17  and asked, “Do you see anything?” 8:24 Regaining his sight 18  he said, “I see people, but they look like trees walking.” 8:25 Then Jesus 19  placed his hands on the man’s 20  eyes again. And he opened his eyes, 21  his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

John 9:6-7

9:6 Having said this, 22  he spat on the ground and made some mud 23  with the saliva. He 24  smeared the mud on the blind man’s 25  eyes 9:7 and said to him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” 26  (which is translated “sent”). 27  So the blind man 28  went away and washed, and came back seeing.


tn Or “healed.”

tn Heb “there will no longer be from there death and miscarriage [or, ‘barrenness’].”

tn Or “and let them eat.”

tn The verb is וַיּוֹרֵהוּ (vayyorehu, “and he showed him”). It is the Hiphil preterite from יָרָה (yarah), which has a basic meaning of “to point, show, direct.” It then came to mean “to teach”; it is the verb behind the noun “Law” (תּוֹרָה, torah).

tn Or “a [piece of] wood” (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV, TEV, CEV); NLT “a branch.”

tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

tn Heb “there he”; the referent (the Lord) is supplied for clarity.

tn Heb “for him” (referring to Israel as a whole).

tn This translation interprets the two nouns as a hendiadys: “a statute and an ordinance” becomes “a binding ordinance.”

10 tn The verb נִסָּהוּ (nissahu, “and he tested him [them]”) is from the root נָסָה (nasah). The use of this word in the Bible indicates that there is question, doubt, or uncertainty about the object being tested.

11 tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

12 tn Grk “his”; the referent (the deaf man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

13 sn After spitting, he touched his tongue. It was not uncommon in Judaism of the day to associate curative powers with a person’s saliva. The scene as a whole reflects Jesus’ willingness to get close to people and have physical contact with them where appropriate. See W. L. Lane, Mark (NICNT), 267 n. 78.

14 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

15 sn The author’s parenthetical note gives the meaning of the Aramaic word Ephphatha.

16 tn Grk “village, and.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

17 tn Grk “on him,” but the word πάλιν in v. 25 implies that Jesus touched the man’s eyes at this point.

18 tn The verb ἀναβλέπω, though normally meaning “look up,” when used in conjunction with blindness means “regain sight.”

19 tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

20 tn Grk “his”; the referent (the blind man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

21 tn Or “he looked intently”; or “he stared with eyes wide open” (BDAG 226 s.v. διαβλέπω 1).

22 tn Grk “said these things.”

23 tn Or “clay” (moistened earth of a clay-like consistency). The textual variant preserved in the Syriac text of Ephraem’s commentary on the Diatessaron (“he made eyes from his clay”) probably arose from the interpretation given by Irenaeus in Against Heresies: “that which the Artificer, the Word, had omitted to form in the womb, he then supplied in public.” This involves taking the clay as an allusion to Gen 2:7, which is very unlikely.

24 tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) was replaced by a third person pronoun and a new sentence started here in the translation.

25 tn Grk “on his.”

26 tn The pool’s name in Hebrew is shiloah from the Hebrew verb “to send.” In Gen 49:10 the somewhat obscure shiloh was interpreted messianically by later Jewish tradition, and some have seen a lexical connection between the two names (although this is somewhat dubious). It is known, however, that it was from the pool of Siloam that the water which was poured out at the altar during the feast of Tabernacles was drawn.

27 sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. Why does he comment on the meaning of the name of the pool? Here, the significance is that the Father sent the Son, and the Son sent the man born blind. The name of the pool is applicable to the man, but also to Jesus himself, who was sent from heaven.

28 tn Grk “So he”; the referent (the blind man) is specified in the translation for clarity.